a weekend

I saw my nephew this weekend for the first time in a long time. He’s 15 now, and I cannot really get my head around that. It doesn’t help that he looks about 11, and doesn’t talk a whole lot. But he’s super creative and has been modifying old sawzall blades to make knives.

It’s sad to me that my transition, while being exactly what I needed to move forward with my life, has made many past aspects of my life awkward at best and completely void at the worst.

I appreciate my dad more than I can express. He’s a very genuine person. And genuinely good. He uses my name. And even my pronouns, though he fumbled and backpedaled when given a death stare by my mom.
Both of my parents were very nice and giving and kind to my friends and me. I know that my mom misses me. She is always prompting me to come visit.

And I’m mostly okay with visiting, it’s just that I don’t really enjoy how jarring it is to be misrepresented. I am not ever going to insist that she use my name and pronouns. I am never going to give her ultimatum or anything of the sort. But I am going to be hesitant to spend very much of my valuable time away from work putting myself through such -once again “jarring” is the best word- encounters.

Both of my parents seem to accept Liam as my partner. I have never explicitly told them this is true, but they are not dumb. The invitation is for both of us (despite the insistence of separate rooms.) I do not know what they think of the relationship, or even if they think of it much at all.

Because we have a State Parks pass, we will be visiting that side of the mountains a few times this year, as there are several state parks near them. Hopefully it will continue to be good.

Also this weekend, I visited an old workplace - Glenwood Caverns. I was a tram operator for most of high school and a couple of summers after starting college. It was a fun job. And though it has changed a whole lot in the intervening 8 or so years, it’s still a fun place. I hope my friends had a good time trooping along after my nostalgia.

It was nice to spend some time visiting old places and people that I once knew so well.